Partner Institutions

Nationwide Bundling of Expertise and Resources

Systems biology crosses borders – academic, institutional and financial. For research to be effective in this area of science, it is absolutely essential that disciplines that formerly had little to do with each other work together. Additionally, systems biology also requires a critical mass of funding and personnel. These needs were recognized in Switzerland and the course was set accordingly for a nationwide bundling of expertise and resources.

12 equal partners

The foundation for this ambitious initiative was laid in 2007 with the establishment of the SystemsX.ch research network. What in 2004 began as a collaboration between three universities now comprises 12 equal partners: two federal universities, seven cantonal universities and three other research institutions. SystemsX.ch has developed into Switzerland’s biggest ever public-sector research initiative and is focused on an area of basic research.

SyBIT

SyBIT's philosophy is to build on locally available support structures, strengthening them to be able to deal with the additional work due to SystemsX.ch. We try to make use of existing software, tools and infrastructure wherever possible. Therefore SyBIT is not working in isolation but is tightly collaborating with those who already provide support in the individual institutions. The SyBIT partners are:

The Center for Information Science and Databases (CISD) of the ETH Zürich, located in Basel.

The Functional Genomics Center Zürich (FGCZ) at the University of Zürich and the ETH Zürich.

The Vital-IT Bioinformatics Competence Center of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in Lausanne.

The Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Core Facility of the EPFL in Lausanne.